Four Fuss-Free Meal Planning Hacks You'll Love. I can't imagine planning my menu for 10 weeks at a time like one person in the post, but menu planning is definitely a big help, even if it is a momentary pain in the rear. (Food Your Way)

Friday, September 28, 2012

Day 28: Cinnamon Roll Muffins. I didn't make these ahead of time, and I almost gave up and just said, "Let's eat cereal," but we're so close to the end of the month and doing really well, so the boys helped me mix these up quick this morning. Ours didn't turn out as pretty as the original poster's, but they were still okay. They did seem a little dry to me. Still, I like the idea, so I might play with the recipe some more...

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Day 27: Today we had more Chocolate Oatmeal, thanks to the magic of melting chocolate chips. We are in the home stretch, now, which is good, because our cupboards and fridge are getting bare, and remembering to post every morning is getting tricky (hence the lack of photos lately). Still, this has been a good challenge, and I'll be wrapping it up with some final thoughts once we're all finished. Stay tuned!

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

We had Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Muffins left over from yesterday. Apparently all of my plans for having eggs this month are just a big fail, because I think we've had eggs twice. I didn't end up making the English Muffin Bread yesterday as planned, and we still had plenty of muffins, so we just went with it.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

I used my standard pancake and waffle recipe, minus the chocolate chips, and added about 4 oz. of cooked crumbled sausage. I got a dozen regular size muffins. I still had a little bit of extra batter, so I made 6 smaller chocolate chip pancake muffins as well. These were pretty good, and easier to eat than a plate of pancakes and sausage, so I would guess we'll have these again. Plus, like most of the breakfast ideas I've tried this month, you can make these ahead of time, and just reheat them. Bonus!

Friday, September 14, 2012

When I first thought about doing this challenge, this recipe was one of
the first ones to come to mind that I wanted to try. We got these foil
star mini baking pans in our Seminary food donations, of all places, and
Jonah thinks they are so much fun. When I showed him the picture from
the recipe, he said, "Cake!", so to top that idea off by baking them in
these stars, he was pretty excited for breakfast.

Matthew was excited too. He didn't care for pictures, though. He just dug right in.

I wanted to like this. I really did. It just wasn't sweet enough for me. Or maybe I was just expecting it to be sweet, and it wasn't. There is an optional frosting in the post as well, and I think maybe that might have made it better. I just didn't want to add the extra calories. But both boys thought it was amazing, so maybe they just don't need as much sugar as their mama, which is fine by me.

This is definitely a treat breakfast, as each one of these stars is 235 calories (and 1 serving is technically 2 stars). I tripled the recipe, in case you were wondering. I didn't have any bananas, so I used some pureed pumpkin instead. I think bananas would be even better though, because I think that would fit better with chocolate and peanut butter. Here's the nutrition information breakdown (click to see larger):

I do have one star left, so maybe I'll try to put some frosting on it and see if that helps. Or maybe I'll just dip it in sugar...(only half joking)...

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Our first stop was CVS. Jumbo pack of diapers: $7.99. Used $4/1 CVS printable (expires today, but good coupon!) and $4ECB that I had = free!

Our second stop of the day was Walgreens. Jumbo pack of diapers: $5.99. Used $3RR that needed to be used = paid $2.99. Some of the coupon bloggers have reported finding $1 off peelie coupons on these diapers, but no luck for me. Oh well.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Day 12: We were going to have Eggs in Toast (or Hole in a Bucket - when you cut a hole in the piece of bread and cook the egg in the center), but I didn't feel like cooking those, so we had leftover muffins from yesterday instead. This does mean I'll have to figure out something else for one of the meals in a couple weeks, because I was going to freeze the muffins for then. That's okay by me! I am definitely a fan of breakfasts I can prepare ahead of time.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Three Signs To Help You Identify Your Financial Sinkholes. One of mine used to be books. Until I realized that I didn't read most of the ones on my shelf, and that I just had them for looks. (Money Saving Mom)Doing The Hard Things. I have been tracking my calories and making purposeful decisions about what I eat. In the past 3 months, I've lost 20 pounds. And it has certainly not been easy, but it is getting easier. (Life Your Way)

Dealing With Exhaustion (When You Can't Get More Sleep). I figured by now we'd be getting regular sleep, but sadly, one or both of the boys still wake up at least once a night. My favorite is #5: Give yourself something to look forward to. Even if it's just a tiny little thing, it helps. (Simple Organized Living) Is My Desire To Recycle An Excuse To Keep Stuff? This definitely used to be me. I had stacks of magazines over 3 feet high because I was going to take them to the recycling place "one day". Now we have a bin in the dining room that we take once a week. Much better. I still need to get better about dontating things in a timely manner though. (Unclutterer)

Jesse doesn't like this egg bake, and Jonah decided he didn't either. At least Matthew enjoyed it with me.

Ingredients:

6 slices bread, ripped into pieces

1 cup sausage, cooked

1 cup shredded cheese (I used mozzarella)

1/2 cup mushrooms, cooked

handful spinach (frozen is fine)

8 eggs

2 cups milk

1 tsp. salt

pepper, garlic powder to taste (I did about 1/2 tsp. of each)

Directions:
Place ripped up bread in bottom of 13x9 pan. Top with sausage, cheese, and veggies. In separate bowl, mix eggs, milk and seasonings. Pour over top of pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 40-45 minutes until set in the middle. This can be made ahead of time and refrigerated, and then just reheated by the slice in the microwave the next morning.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Day 6: Oatmeal from Make-Ahead Packets. Except we didn't make them ahead of time. I just measured the oatmeal and water out and made us each a bowl. For add-ins, we had brown sugar, milk, blueberries, craisins, and flax seeds. Yum!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Jonah's birthday is in a few weeks (he's turning 3!) and his current favorite is Thomas the Tank Engine. So we are having a train party (you'll be seeing some more train party goodies over the next few weeks).

For these invitations, I did a google search for "Thomas the tank engine face" and found a good picture to use. I copied that onto gray cardstock, and cut them out. I glued the faces, along with a bar of red cardstock, to a 3.5 x 5 piece of blue construction paper, and added some black Sharpie details. On the back I did a print-out of all the party details.

Overall, these only took me about an hour to do, and I had everything I needed in my craft supplies, which to me was a lot better than paying over $10 for some "actual" Thomas invitations. I think they turned out great! Jonah even asked if he could have one. :)

The original plan for today was scrambled eggs and toast, but none of us really felt like making that. So we decided to have the rest of the Zucchini Pumpkin Bread and fruit. And then we started eating the bread and it tasted a bit off. So we had fruit and peanut butter toast instead. Oh well! Tomorrow is another day...

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Friends of ours gave us a bunch of yummy things from their garden, including several peppers. Since I'm the only one who really likes peppers, I decided to make some pepper poppers to enjoy for lunch. They turned out pretty good, and I am not ashamed to say I ate them all myself.

Ingredients:

1-2 slices of bread, pulsed through a blender or food processor to make bread crumbs

1/3 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/3 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

garlic, onion powder, red pepper flakes to taste

small assorted peppers (obviously)

Directions:
Slice peppers open and take out all seeds. For jalapenos, cutting in half is easiest. For larger peppers, you can just cut a slit along one side so they form a curvy pocket for the filling. Put them open side down and drizzle a bit of oil over the top. Pop in the oven for a few minutes at about 375 degrees to get them to start softening. Mine were in there for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, make your bread crumbs, and add the cheese and spices.

Take the peppers out of the oven, flip them over with tongs, and spoon filling into each one. It's totally acceptable to make a mess on the pan to get them nice and full. Pop them back in the oven for 5-10 more minutes, until everything is melty and toasty and yummy.

While not exactly like the store-bought poppers, these are quite delicious, and pretty simple to make. Recipe experiment success!

Monday, September 3, 2012

We have our grocery shopping for the month pretty well done (which is a good thing, because I completely underestimated how much I was going to spend, and I only have about 25% of the entire thing left - so much for my grand ideas!). Breakfasts and dinners are planned specific to the day, and lunches are planned a week at a time, but we can pick and choose from those.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

My Prenatal Expectations Of Parenthood Caused Me To Lose Track Of My Marriage. "Now, the only regular contact with adults I had was from my husband, so
every little thing he did and said mattered that much more to me. His
role in my life was and always will be a very large and important one,
but it grew exponentially." While I wouldn't say I lost track of my marriage, this bit of the post absolutely resonated with me. (Offbeat Mama)

Day 2 of the Breakfast Challenge: Breakfast Sandwiches from the freezer and fruit. We had these for dinner recently, and I froze the extras for an easy breakfast. (Only one of those breakfast sandwiches is mine).

This is a little bit higher calorie recipe, but easy to make ahead of time and freeze.

Fruit Salad Dressing:

1 cup vanilla yogurt

1/3 cup orange juice

1 tsp. cinnamon

Toss with several cups of fresh fruit to coat. Or, you could do like me, and do 1 Tbsp. of yogurt and 1 tsp. of orange juice, plus a sprinkle of cinnamon, for a single bowl of fruit. I got this recipe from a friend at the Seminary picnic last weekend, and it's delicious!

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Yesterday I went to HyVee to take advantage of a few catalina deals. So I split my items into a few transactions. After all was said and done, I only spent $21.29 out of pocket for everything pictured!

Even though we're doing the Think Outside The Box Challenge this month, we'll still have a few boxes of cereal for back-ups or for next month. If I hadn't found these, I wasn't going to do this deal, because most of the cereals were over $4/box, which would have been way expensive.

I wasn't originally planning on doing the Kraft deal, but there were enough items that we were going to buy anyway, so I decided to go ahead and buy those. If I had been planning ahead, I would have been able to print even more coupons (for Capri Suns and hot dogs, or more for cheese), but they were all gone already. Still a great deal for things we will use!

About Me

Katherine is a stay-at-home mom exploring all the crafts of the home: cooking, organizing, budgeting, baking, decorating, cleaning, and being a mom and wife. She likes projects that are simple and easy, and is always looking for new ideas!